Presentation: Our ARG’s evolution process, how Fight Against Normality came to be
1) Delegation of Team roles
(initial roles)
Initial Team members roles:
(just according to my opinion, so it can change, just an idea)
Marlo: Developer, user experience manager
Karen: Editor, Documentor(Video and photos), Graphic designer
Ryan: Game design, Writers, Graphic Designer, Storytelling
Kat: Storytelling, Development Analyst, Developer
Julius: Marketer, Developer, user interface designer
Steven: Game Director/Manager?, Planner, StorytellingSteven, Ryan, Kat = Research, Setting, Concept & Development
Marlo(Developer) Technical, Engine, Tool, maybe Physic?
Kat(Developer) assistant, associate, technical
Julius(Developer)Graphic, Interface, Network
Ryan & Karen = Game design, UE designer
Patrick: Voice acting, game development, bullshitter in chief
2) Katriel created a prezi which w=served as the base of our game’s story, and how it would work. Ultimately we wanted our ARG to break conformity, hence its soon to be title “Fight Against Normality: My Edition” (FANme)
Prezi: https://prezi.com/yzzw7dsgcn9l/blue-bananas/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
3) Setting a game objective:
1. To encourage CoLab students to discover and make better use of learning resources at AUT
2. To help players to rethink waste at AUT
3. To explore AUT’s values: integrity, respect and compassion
4. * Set your own objective: (submit for approval)
We had to choose from the above options to structure our ARG around, ultimately choosing option #4, our on objective which was:
To encourage creativity and thinking outside the box
To encourage AUT students to be more socially widespread (as a minor). Can help considering anyone we meet here might be someone we one day end up working with.
4) We decided to try and be a little more productive and to chart our progress (in the beta phases of game development anyway) with google documents which had been just introduced to us by Laurent and Tom Cochrane
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BQQ2eDdlrEtWmR-AdLoMEjFdgPbK3MQMtDT2ryBXsI0/edit?usp=sharing
5) once we decided what we wanted to aim towards, we listed our own specific sets of talents to just provide an overview of what we;re capable of and prefered working tasks, an example of such being mine: “ Special effects Idiot named Patrick, I liek doing screwy psychology shit, drawing, writing bullshit, horsemasks, costumes, character creation/ideas, my skills are being completely out of the box (normal is overrated), I'm good with words (love em), i have a certificate in mechanical engineering, level 1 ski instructors qualification (pretty irrelevant but yknow. I'd like to take part in kinda conceptual/creation parts of the project, just generally point me in a direction and say "go wild" and bitch if I did it wrong pls heart emoticon”
This stage of the project was more informal, kind of trying to break the ice and get to know one another as we’d portay ourselves to the rest of the group (hence the complete lack of formality and sensibility of my intro post above)
6) Erfan analysed what kinds of ARGs end up generating a maximum amount of impact, so he proposed the following to our facebook group
Most effective games that people end up playing spontaneously are games with a point to play but no specific reward other than accomplishing the goal.
I've suggested to the group on Thursday (after people left) that we should be smart and take a physical game like hide an seek or tag (where it already has its aim,physical interaction, and reward) and add the ARG gaming experience to it with a twist.I suggested something like hide and seek with the ability to see house items on your mobile screen to play hide n seek with people, but also when you lose the dam remote you can use the same app to find your shit (which is accomplishing a possible group aim to make a game that has a game and another useful purpose)
7) As a follow up to Erfans proposal, I decided to to some more research on some truly spectacular ARG games
http://www.cracked.com/article_19346_the-5-most-insane-alternate-reality-games.html
8) After this we had a few more development sessions where we all decided to (sadly undocumented thru our facebook page or google document) chip in and create an aspect of the game to try and apply it
I decided to try and make a gameplay strategy idea, which I felt would have been good but upon revieww we felt it wasnt really what we’re looking for and decided to scrap it
Gameplay Strategy Idea:
Every week we generate 10 random words and the players have to try and create a character comprised of a 10 of those words into a new character to join the ever-growing population of our (Blank?) Kingdom. The character has to be an illustration, with a short bio of said character (if the player can be bothered) and each entry uploaded to a link online where players and the game moderators vote which single character (that fits the 10 words of the week) will join the population of the kingdom. We can potentially introduce once-a-month events where players can choose how the characters interact with each other etc. The idea behind this is that the players "build" the game and the lore/history that happens as the game gets older, creating a flow of user-based content that will keep existing and pushing forward as new generations can add their content to update this ever growing hive of creativity
9) We finally sorted out who was doing what job, and the background/story behind our game was drawn up and completed
Job Settled (Main)
Julius & Marlo - Developer
Karen & Anni - Graphic Designer
Ryan - Editor
Patrick - Strategy Designer?
Erfan - User Experience
Kat & Steven - Concept/ Storytelling
Concept Story( Correct me if something wrong)
This is the story summary me n Kat come out of
Main Characters
Wackers (just call it for now), the creatures live in the kingdom
Wacky King
Adventurer
Background Story/ Setting
100 Years ago, there was a big happy “Colourful” Kingdom living a bunch of Wackers, they do wacky things for living. One day, The kingdom was celebrating Wacky Princess’s birthday, they invited all different Kingdoms to the party. However, when other visitors came in and found out that, the people in this Kingdom was really weird, and started gossip about them. Eventually, Wackers felt really embarrassed and stop doing anything Wacky. Unfortunately, Wackers doesn’t know they were survived by the wacky spirit from what they normally do to gain it. Thus, Wackers started to become weak, the kingdom started to become greyish, and some Wackers starting to vanish. Day by day, The kingdom have collapsed and become the Blank Kingdom. It ended up become a very very small group or something, only 70 Wackers left and some important roles, like the King.
100 years later, there was an Adventurer came to them and found out what happened. He suggested them to be themself, do wacky stuff, because this is how they survived and that’s the one way to repopulate their race. So, the game start?
10) Another prezi link crafted
http://prezi.com/agzsqbdipsl6/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
11) Fearless Leader Marlo posted an update on our mechanic amidst the ravages of the BCT plague, which was nearly killing everyone
Small update:
Today, Erfan, Steven and I talked about an alternative game mechanic pitch, different from what Julius has made (which we'll explain in greater detail later on if necessary) and so now we have two game mechanic pitches. One that's somewhat centralised around gameplay, another that's more about social interaction. Erfan and Julius are/will be talking about it and we'll see what happens. In terms of the story, we're at a point where the game mechanics determines a lot about where the story needs to go and what needs to be done so for those that are working on the story, I would suggest taking a pause for now and taking a break. Work towards something else for now such as blogging about the recent events and/or your integrative design blog. For others, there's research to be done so feel free to continue on that. It would be great to have everyone in tomorrow but if you're sick, STAY AT HOME. We will contact you if desperately need your input on the matter. Cheeeeeers.tl;dr:
- Game mechanics still to be chosen.
- Story people stop working on story for now.
- If you're sick, STAY AT HOME.
12) Fearless Leader once again updating the rest of the group where the game’s progression is at
Hey guys,
So for the past week or two, I know and realise that we've been spending a lot of time on the game mechanic and not much on anything else. Erfan, Julius and I have been busting our brains out, trying to get a solid game mechanic going that will hopefully lead to consistency later on, in terms of the direction we're going. We understand that it's not about the outcome but the process of making the ARG, which I think is why we've been spending a lot of time on it. We've been working on critical thinking and reflection for this game. That being said, I'm sorry that it's taking a long time and that you're left with nothing to do. This is an unfortunate time where you're waiting for the game mechanic to be decided to be able to continue. With that in mind, I challenge those that have nothing to do, to take up a critical approach towards this problem and reflect on it. I want you guys to blog about the lack of development and say what you're going to do about it. I suggest you take this as a challenge to look at what you can do and what you can help with in this situation. Take it upon yourselves to go beyond the job that's required of you. As far as it goes, that's the only content I can give you for your blogging for now and I'm sorry that you have to wait. Erfan will be working with Julius in the next few days to come up with a final decision on the game mechanics.
tl;dr:
- Sorry for taking a long time with game mechanics.
- Go beyond your role and do things that you think might be useful for the group.
- Everything is bloggable so reflect on this lack of work issue and roll with it.
- Game mechanic will be chosen in the next few days.
13) We had a breakthrough with one of Erfan’s plans, where everyone clicked onto what we needed to do and the gameplay mechanic was finally conceptualised and thus we began to improve and adapt it
So, I can somewhat make out Erfan's plan. We've already discussed something like it so I can fill in the blanks that I'm not fully understanding.
In terms of what the next step is and what people's job is, I'll go through that now. There are three main things to work on with Erfan's idea. There's the "Skills" which would have tasks within each skill. As each task is done, your level at that skill increases. I'm going to refer to skills in this post as categories. We need to decide on the default categories that would essentially lure people into playing and into making more categories. So, for Steven and Katriel, I want you guys to talk to each other and look into what kind of categories we would want in our default categories. Example would be a pet category, fitness, studying and so forth. Things to consider would be how easy it is to approach each category because some people might not have pets. Also the difficult of each task within said categories. Comment or message me if something is unclear or you want to discuss something.
For Anni, Karen, Ryan and Patrick, now that we have the general game mechanic, it's safe to say that the lore is set in stone. That means that you can work on the "trailer" of the game. Some of you have already researched this so you would have an idea of what they put into their trailers in comparison to the content of the game. So brainstorm on how you would do it, through live action filming, animation or etc. You have to remember that this is what people would be looking at to get a teaser of the game. You need to decide on how much of the lore goes to the trailer, if we need to make a separate video entirely just on the lore, and if they need a preview of what they'll be doing in this ARG. Comment or message for anything. Make sure to talk to Steven and Katriel to clarify anything about the lore or if they had a specific vision on how they want it portrayed. Just because I've assigned you in these smaller groups doesn't mean that you can't pitch in with the other groups.
Erfan, how long are you gone for?
Julius, keep up what you're doing. I'll make a quick mock up of the app and I'll show you, hopefully by Friday. Let me know if you found anything interesting or if there's anything I missed out on.
TL;DR
(If you'd like to work primarily on something else that I've assigned, let me know. This way, we can estimate the workload and other things that we need to look out for)
Steven and Kat:
- Work on categories
- What should we have to lure them in and the difficult of each category
Anni, Karen, Ryan and Patrick:
- Start on the trailer/teaser
- Talk about what needs to be in
- Don't forget to talk to Kat and Steven about the lore
https://prezi.com/vwzzpoowur4w/this-is-the-castle-or-the-game/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
15) At this stage in development we were sticking with the idea of making our own app to carry out our ARG, and marlo crafted a brief prototype of our apps layout
16) Kat devised a list of task that were relatively normal for people to “break” and make weirder/more unusual and thus fulfilling the gameplay requirements
“New list...
We could possibly write "break this!" before each list; as we're giving people normality so they can break it.Making a sandwich
Cleaning the windows
Vacuuming
Brushing your teeth
Eating an apple
Drawing a picture
Sending a text
Waking someone up
Fixing your hair
Taking a pet for a walk
Doing your homework
Putting on your coat
Drinking water
Cooking dinner
Mopping the floor
Take a photo
Make tea
Paint a picture
Put on makeup
Paint your nails”
17) Steven then drew up some designs for our logo, whochwere a little conflicted on the basis they may look a little similar to the nazi swastika used by Hitler during his World War 2 campaig. Personally, i did not make the swastika connection, although I can observe the similarities I thought they were still distincively different.
However, with the logo I did not agree with how it fit in to the asesthetic implied or the theme inherent in the story/feeling of the game.
^First drafts as opposed to the final product (below)
18) We decided to drop the idea of making Fight Against Normality as an application based game in favour of a more broad social networking tool, Facebook, specifically making a page for it to be carried out on. The page is prospering and you can check out the link to it here:https://www.facebook.com/FightAgainstNormality?fref=ts
19) We were given a brief to make a presentation for our ARG, and we took this to mean we had to advertise it, so the group set in motion making an animated film coupled with a poem with myself doing the voice overs in differing ways.
https://soundcloud.com/thecheesychum/sets/voice-over-recordings-for-our-arg-advertisementpresentation?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=tumblr
However, clarity is a problem for the recordings so I was planning to re-record them for a better quality of communication etc
20) Today, 21/09/2015, we realized, that holy fuck, we were meant to make a presentation regarding how our ARG came about, not an ADVERTISEMENT, which is what we had been building for. We decided to keep the work we’ve done so far on our advertising to try and market our ARG, because its pretty cool. But now all systems are go as we try and meet the deadline 1 day before it’s due to be presented....
